President Biden: Live Updates on Immigration, Coronavirus, Voting Rights and ACA

The Senate on Wednesday will take initial steps to advance one of Democrats’ top legislative priorities, convening the chamber’s first hearing on a federal elections overhaul meant to blunt a wave of new voting restrictions racing through Republican-controlled statehouses.

Chock-full of liberal priorities, the bill, called the For the People Act, would usher in a landmark expansion of voting rights, new campaign finance laws and an end to partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts. The legislation passed the House along party lines earlier this month.

Democrats on the Senate Rules Committee hope that testimony from Eric Holder, the former attorney general; prominent voting experts; and anti-corruption advocates will help build on a rising drumbeat of support by liberals for its enactment.

“People realize you don’t just talk about voting as messaging anymore,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and the Rules Committee chairwoman. “It’s what drives our entire democracy, and it’s at risk. It’s at risk from dangerous mobs and at risk from state carve-outs trying to make it harder to vote.”

But the hearing will also give the bill’s proponents a first look at Republicans’ adamant opposition and a clearer sense of just how steep their task may be if they want to move beyond the realm of political messaging into one of the most contentious areas of the law.

So far, not a single Republican supports the nearly 800-page bill, and even Democrats are unlikely to win support from all 50 of their members without substantial changes.

Democrats’ best hope for making it into law increasingly appears to be to try to leverage its voting protections — which many liberals view as a life or death matter not just for American democracy, but their own political chances in the future — to justify triggering the Senate’s so-called nuclear option: the elimination of the filibuster rule requiring 60 votes, rather than a simple majority, to pass most bills. For now, though even that remains out of reach as long as conservative Democrats in the 50-50 Senate are opposed.

Either way, Republicans are determined to make the consideration of the bill as painful as possible. They have invited Mac Warner, the Republican secretary of state of West Virginia; Todd Rokita, the Republican attorney general of Indiana; and two former G.O.P. chairmen of the Federal Election Commission to testify in opposition on Wednesday.

Republicans are particularly alarmed about provisions that would create a new public campaign financing system for congressional candidates and restructure the Federal Election Commission, making it more partisan and punitive.

They argue that the entire bill is merely a dressed-up attempt by Democrats to give themselves a political advantage by driving up turnout among minority groups and by preventing Republicans, who control a majority of statehouses, from drawing new congressional districts later this year that would tilt the playing field in their favor.

“What they are trying to do, basically, is use a sliver of a majority to lock in permanent gains, so they never relinquish power,” Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, said on a call on Tuesday with conservative advocacy groups opposing the bill.

President Biden’s demand for new gun control measures on Tuesday was the latest in what has become a doleful ritual in Washington: making a renewed call for legislation after a deadly mass shooting, the latest one at a Colorado grocery store where 10 people, including a police officer, were killed on Monday.

But while polling regularly shows broad support for tighter gun laws and specific policies like a ban on assault weapons, Republicans in Congress remained all but immovable on the issue, repeating longstanding arguments on Tuesday that gun violence should be addressed through steps like more policing rather than limiting gun rights.

“There’s not a big appetite among our members to do things that would appear to be addressing it, but actually don’t do anything to fix the problem,” said Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Senate Republican.

Even before the recent shootings, which also included a deadly rampage at massage parlors in Atlanta, Democrats had begun advancing stricter gun control measures. But those proposals face long odds in the 50-to-50 Senate, where it takes 60 votes to overcome a filibuster.

House Democrats passed two bills this month aimed at expanding and strengthening background checks for gun buyers by applying them to all gun buyers and extending the time the F.B.I. has to vet those flagged by the national instant check system.

The twin pieces of legislation passed in the House have been deemed ineffective and too expansive by most Republicans; only eight House Republicans voted to advance the universal background check legislation. The bills would almost certainly not muster 60 votes in the Senate.

Nevertheless, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, vowed on Tuesday to put the bills to a vote on the Senate floor, and Mr. Biden urged their passage while also calling for an assault weapons ban. The gunman in the Colorado shooting was armed with both a military-style semiautomatic rifle and a pistol.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said that he was “open to the discussion” around gun control measures, but that he was opposed to the two House-passed bills.

“What I’m not attracted to is something that doesn’t work, and there have been deep-seated philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats about how to deal with gun violence,” Mr. McConnell said.

Mr. Biden, for his part, expressed uncertainty when asked by a reporter whether he had the political capital to move forward with gun safety measures.

“I hope so,” he said, crossing his fingers. “I don’t know. I haven’t done any counting yet.”

The White House said Tuesday that it would appoint a senior official to focus on Asian-American priorities after the Senate’s two Asian-American Democrats called on President Biden to address what they said was an unacceptable lack of representation at the highest levels of his administration.

In a late-night statement, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said Mr. Biden would name “a senior-level Asian-American Pacific Islander liaison who will ensure the community’s voice is further represented and heard.”

“The president has made it clear that his administration will reflect the diversity of the country,” Ms. Psaki said. “That has always been, and remains, our goal.”

The announcement came hours after Senators Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii promised to withhold their votes on some nominees until Mr. Biden engaged more actively on the issue amid a rising tide of racism toward Asian-Americans during the pandemic, culminating in last week’s deadly shootings in the Atlanta area.

With the Senate divided evenly between the two parties, the move temporarily threatened to derail the president’s hopes of confirming several executive branch officials, including the Pentagon’s No. 3. Apparently, it also created considerable pressure to find a solution to a diversity problem the senators said they had been quietly raising for months.

Open disputes between Mr. Biden and congressional Democrats have been relatively rare in his first months in office, and the senators’ ultimatum was an unusual public disagreement within a party in uniform control of Washington. But by late Tuesday, Ms. Duckworth and Ms. Hirono had dropped their threats and appeared satisfied by the administration’s response.

Ben Garmisa, a spokesman for Ms. Duckworth, said in a statement that the senator appreciated the White House’s “assurances that it will do much more to elevate A.A.P.I. voices and perspectives at the highest levels of government,” referring to Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. He added that the White House had given assurances that its new appointee would work both to confirm more Asian-American and Pacific Islander nominees and to advance legislation that was “relevant and important to the community.”

“Accordingly, she will not stand in the way of President Biden’s qualified nominees — which will include more A.A.P.I. leaders,” Mr. Garmisa said of Ms. Duckworth.

Citing her own conversation with the White House, Ms. Hirono said on Twitter that she would also “continue voting to confirm the historic and highly qualified nominees President Biden has appointed to serve in his administration.”

Dr. Vivek Murthy, who helped found several health-related advocacy groups and later tackled the opioid epidemic and e-cigarettes as surgeon general during the Obama administration, was confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday to reprise that role for President Biden.

The vote, 57 to 43, was a much smoother ride for Dr. Murthy than the first time he was confirmed, in 2014, when Republicans cast him as a politically connected supporter of President Barack Obama who would use his position to push for stricter gun control. The fight dragged on for months, leaving the country without a top doctor for more than a year.

When President Donald J. Trump was elected, Dr. Murthy was asked to resign. He refused and was fired, his wife, Alice Chen, said at the time.

Dr. Murthy will return as surgeon general at a critical moment, as the president tries to steer the nation out of the worst public health crisis in a century while expanding access to health care for millions of Americans. During his confirmation hearing, he told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that he would make ending the coronavirus pandemic his highest priority.

Dr. Murthy, 43, helped found Doctors for Obama, a group that worked to elect Mr. Obama and now works to expand health care access for Americans. It now goes by Doctors for America.

As an undergraduate at Harvard University, he helped found two nonprofits, one focusing on H.I.V./AIDS education in the United States and India, and the other to train women as community health workers in rural India.

A son of Indian immigrants and the first person of Indian descent to hold the surgeon general’s post, Dr. Murthy, 43, was born in England and grew up mostly in Miami, watching his parents in their own medical practice. He invoked them during his confirmation hearing.

“I have tried,” Dr. Murthy said, “to live by the lessons they embodied: that we have an obligation to help each other whenever we can, to alleviate suffering wherever we find it, and to give back to this country that made their lives and my life and the lives of my children possible.”

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Biden Extends Obamacare Enrollment Period to Aug. 15

President Biden said on Tuesday, the 11th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, that Americans who need health insurance would have until Aug. 15 to sign up through Healthcare.gov.

Eleven years ago today, President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act, a historic achievement that would not have been possible but for the vision and determination of one of the most successful presidents in recent American history, Barack Obama. If you enroll in Obamacare, you’re going to save an average of $50 a month, $600 a year by the reduction in payments. For millions who are out of work and have no coverage, thanks to this law, there’s an Obamacare plan that most folks can get with $0 premiums. We’re also making it easy, easier to sign up for Obamacare. We’ve opened Healthcare.gov for special enrollments on Feb. 15. In the first two weeks alone, more than 200,000 Americans gained coverage. Today, I’m pleased to announce we’ve extended that period to run through Aug. 15. With the American Rescue Plan, and the Affordable Care Act, millions of families will be able to sleep a little more soundly at night because they don’t have to worry about losing everything if they get sick.

Americans who need health insurance will now have even longer to select a health plan for the rest of the year. The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it would extend enrollment for Obamacare plans sold on Healthcare.gov until Aug. 15, from a May deadline.

The change was announced on the 11th anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act, the law that established the markets where individuals could buy their own health insurance, and made plans available to shoppers regardless of pre-existing health conditions, among many other provisions.

“We have a duty not just to protect it but to make it better and keep becoming a nation where health care is a right for all and not a privilege for a few,” President Biden said at the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital at the Ohio State University on Tuesday.

The stimulus bill signed this month expanded subsidies that help people buy such coverage, lowering the price of a typical plan to zero dollars for low-income families and offering financial assistance for the first time to households higher on the income scale. But it is taking time for the Department of Health and Human Services to implement the new provisions, and so far it has decided not to make the changes automatic. That means that even people who currently get coverage on the exchanges will need to go back to request new benefits. The extended enrollment period will give them more time to do that.

“Every American deserves access to quality, affordable health care — especially as we fight back against the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services. His statement encouraged uninsured Americans to sign up and current Obamacare customers to review new discounts.

The administration also announced that sign-ups for special subsidies for Americans who receive unemployment insurance this year will start July 1. Congress established a system for them to receive zero-premium health plans all year, but carrying out that provision quickly has proved complicated.

Enrollment in Affordable Care Act plans for most Americans is typically limited to a six-week period each year, as a means of encouraging people to enroll when they are healthy. But the Biden administration had already opened a second enrollment period this year, arguing that the pandemic and its economic effects presented an emergency that justified expanding options for coverage. The original special enrollment period had been set to expire in mid-May.

The changes apply in the 36 states that use the federal Healthcare.gov platform to manage their insurance marketplaces. But several states that run their own marketplaces have also extended their enrollment periods.

Mr. Biden, who wore a black mask throughout his speech in Ohio, said the extension would also benefit minority communities that “historically have gone without insurance at higher rates” and have been disproportionally impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.

“Millions of families will be able to sleep a little more soundly at night,” the president said, “because they don’t have to worry about losing everything if they get sick.”